


In Pursuit of Lost Time

by ScarlettsLetters



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, F/M, Frigga (Marvel) Lives, Goodbye Sex, Infinity Gems, M/M, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Protective Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers Can Wield Mjolnir, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:50:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettsLetters/pseuds/ScarlettsLetters
Summary: "How long will it take?" Sam asks."As long as he needs," Bruce replies.Avengers: Endgame spoilers ahead. The untold tale of Steve Rogers' final mission.





	1. Prayers in a Foreign Land

_THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value._

     -- Thomas Payne

 

**_2012._ **

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, darkness over the surface of the deep. He remembers the stories of Genesis from that cramped, dark church in Brooklyn, how the stiff-backed priest with that broad Bostonian accent intoned the familiar terms.

_Let there be light, and there was._

As his atoms multiply and the complicated tapestry of bonds multiply and expand on an unfathomable level, prismatic streams splinter around him in a display of blinding wonder. Stained glass patterns form from shattered energy and rejoin in kaleidoscopic configurations reflected upon his visor. Somehow, the reinforced material of the white suit holds and the particle matrix withstands the enlargement that shuttles him back to his normal stature.

He can’t understand the physics or the complex scientific language of the process. All he knows is the pressure threatens to release the contents of his stomach. His battered body protests from countless different directions, a wave of pain. Yet the impossible experience running a deformed Moebius strip brings awe, too, as close to a religious experience he can claim to have in the past fifteen years.

A blink and the disruptive ripple ceases, its singular occupant shunted through the Quantum Realm into reality.

Steve clutches the hammer in his hand, the short haft a comforting presence while a neighbourhood takes shape with dizzying speed around him. Huge buildings rear up from brick seedlings. An asphalt carpet rolls out beneath him and suddenly the stygian darkness caps the roof of the heavens. He lurches forward, thrusting his open hand out to catch himself before he falls. The briefcase he holds crashes to the ground, its precious cargo safely contained in thick layers of lead, foam, and steel.

His gloved finger taps the visor and the helmet dematerializes. Hot air thick with dust, diesel, and the faint stench of garbage meets him like the touch of a lover. A deep inhalation fills his lungs with its familiar perfume, and he blinks into the crooked alley filled by shadowy dumpsters and a thin veil of grey debris. His footprints reveal the dirty concrete beneath the chunks of stone and broken glass glittering dully under dark skies. Debris from the Battle of New York.

“Here’s to you, Bruce. Farewell, old friend.”

Stooping to pick up the case, he glances at Mjolnir. The blocky hammer weighs a fair bit, despite being made of uru. He slides the haft into the utility belt loop and steps out into the streets, finding his bearings quickly enough. The quantum vectors deposited him in Greenwich Village, close to Washington Park.

A man in a white quantum suit marked by the Avengers logo is sure to stand out, but his other choice, the stealth suit, isn’t much better. He gains his bearings as he sets out, avoiding eye contact and looking purposeful. That old trick from the army deflects the initial interest.

Steve quickens his pace as he cuts east for Bleecker Street, the presence of thin foot traffic heartening as it is terrifying. New Yorkers give him curious looks, a few pulling out their camera phones or whispering to one another. They might not care about tourists but their habitual disdain for others falls apart when confronted by one of their local heroes.

“Is that Cap?”

“Billy, stop staring!”

“Why’s he got the hamm--”

“Business,” he says to the two staring men, inviting no questions or requests for his autograph or a selfie.  

His brisk walk past a bodega and shuttered laundromat brings him to the most unexpected sight, a mansion rearing out of the dense conglomeration of apartments and shops. This must be the place, though he’s never been there personally. Copper shines against the murky night punctuated by few stars. Large doors fronted by heavy stairs await him. Brass digits hang over the lintel: 177A. The first of his great tasks will be complete once he announces himself. A welcoming golden sheen reflects off the glass of the great round window overlooking the city, wavering honey turned nearly bronze in the late hour.

Too much like the uncut, unlovely gemstone in his care.

  
_Nat._

He goes to his knees, gorge rising. The mansion swims in front of him, fracturing into reflections of many buildings shining in the sulfurous witchlight thrown by a streetlamp. A pristine white ghost approaches him from too many directions to count.

This is it. This is life without her. Without them. Grief bears on him heavier than the weight of a hundred cuts and bruises inflicted by the double-edged sword Thanos bore. It lacerates the deepest parts of his body, thrust into the marrow.

The pressure in his throat breaks on a groan. “Nat…”

“You need not bear this burden alone.” A serene voice cuts through his aching, throbbing migraine. The cool alto sounds like no one he knows but he clutches at it like a lifeline.  
“I have to.”

He tries to stand. Strong, thin hands brace his shoulders and then he is hoisted up like he weighs no more than the skinny kid in ‘41, facing down an Army recruiter. Looking for his place.

The bald figure before him is an ancient statue of a noble, those clear eyes focused on him. She’s the only thing permanent and still in the swimming blur around her. In that instant, her smile pushes back the anguish to a place where he can breathe.

“You came to the right place, Steven Rogers.”

“I have to return something,” he says. “To…”

“To me,” the Ancient One answers him. “In good time. Now, you need to rest.”

He peers up at her, a rather spare, lean figure aglow in her pale robes. For a moment, she resembles the icons of angels in that dusty neighbourhood church. The weight of his duty sloughs off his shoulders as he sags, and she enfolds him in her arms.


	2. Hope in a Foreign Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first steps on a journey are always the hardest ones to take. Steve is forced to risk opening himself completely in pursuit of the truth.

_ I have ordered to my heart every word I've said, _

_ You have no idea how hard I died when you left. _

_ If I yield to my trances _

_ Will I get up close again? _

    The National --  _ You Had Your Soul With You _  
  


Water slaps at his feet, running around his ankles. Steve peers into the thick mist, a swirling citrine fog painted by a sunset glow. The last time he saw something like this, soldiers ran screaming through the bombed jungle and children fled down a rutted road screaming in pain. He never fought that war. Still frames of documentary footage from Vietnam seem larger than life here.

But the cool mist doesn’t burn his lungs. It swirls around him, an eager cat rubbing up against his ankles and winding past his sides. Visibility reduced to a few feet ahead of him requires a careful path. He edges forward, testing the water with his toe in case his path precipitously drops away and leaves him swimming. Ripples travel away from him with no sounds of waves on the shore or a waterfall, mercifully.

Time doesn’t bear much meaning where fog swathes the landscape, leaving nothing but the unbroken sheet of water and heavy orange mists drawn around him. It feels like he’s been walking this path for hours, ever since he found himself deposited there.    
  
“Ma’am?” he calls out. His voice echoes in strange ways here, clear but muffled a degree.

No response. Nor have there been any answers, just like the last six times. “Ancient One, are you there?” 

Water splashes around him with his steps. The ripples move unbroken. The garden, whatever this is, lacks any hint of the statuesque, fair woman in her odd white robes. His memories before finding himself shrouded in the damp place are fractured and disjointed, a sea of broken images.

The Ancient One deposited him in a spartan room with curiously Oriental furniture, a lacquered armoire and a low, large bed. The case with the stones he kept beside him, his fist closed on the handle. 

He must have slept. He does not recall awakening or leaving the bedroom to explore the grand Victorian pile. Steve bears Mjolnir still, incongruous weight to his rather plain attire. His heavy leather coat protects him against any chill, but he would prefer his uniform to the jeans and button-down shirt. But he makes do, as he always has.

Following the ripples forward is his only choice without any other landmarks to see by.  He fishes the compass out of his pocket and checks the heading for the tenth time, watching the needle veer straight ahead to north. It never swings to any other position, dragged by a lodestone force. He won’t argue with it, though he means to have a long conversation with the Ancient One.

Bruce warned him to be polite. Doctor Strange offered simple words that mirrored the same advice. Be honest and polite.

But here he is, lost in a reflecting pool that never ends. His slog continues until he nearly runs into a tall, thick pole wide around as he is. It rises a good eight feet, slathered by weathered paper. Tearing the crumbling poster free, he squints. Cyrillic covers the old playbill for a dance competition in Moscow, 2004. Beneath it lies another agenda for a meeting between important businessmen, red crosses slashed over a list of names. Three knocked out, a fourth underlined. His fingers stop at the final name, Thaddeus Ross.

“The Secretary of State?” he echoes. His senses shudder.

Without time to contemplate it, Steve hunches down, raising his arm in a deflecting stance. Mjolnir ripped from his belt practically springs to life in his hand, the hammer vibrating in anticipation.

Something heavy strikes the pole inches from his head. A knife quivers hilt-first amongst the images of smiling dancers and cheap cigarette advertisements, vodka superimposed on grim Brutalist architecture. It all spells Russia, a frost-girt empire of cloak and dagger troubles. His fingers slacken.

Steve swings around and shouts, “Natasha!” 

The second knife cleaves through the water, parting the liquid, standing on its bladepoint. He doesn’t hesitate; the graceless charge sends him directly along the trajectory of the throw. Cool leather and warm uru hum in his palm but he daren’t throw the hammer, not like this. Crumpling the playbill, he hurls that aside as his boots finally find dry land -- cement, crumbling and cracked, scored by a sheen of ice.

Natasha stands in front of a broken chair, imperious and cool-eyed, her gun in her hands. The perfect tripod stance braces as she sights him down the barrel. Entering the open chamber leaves so many questions, but he has no time to question the diamond-pane windows on one side and the makeshift interrogation room on the other, cement floor fusing into waxed wooden boards. 

“Put the hammer down, Rogers.”

It’s not a question but a command. He lets go of Mjolnir and it smashes to the unground, inert and chastising somehow. His bare hands rise, the paper floating away to land on the ground. “No danger here, Nat. It’s just you and me.” 

“Tell me what I last threatened you with.” Her tone hardens.

Steve stands still, his bare hands lifted. A rose blush passes over his face, burning its way down from his stinging eyes. There she stands, perfect and glistening black silhouette carved like a knife. Scarlet wisps escape her French braid, haloing her face. A seraphic face. The priest in Brooklyn’s words haunt him still. He never forgot the lessons they were not gentle angels but God’s messengers bearing fiery swords, terrifying and unbearable to behold. Like her.

The lump in his throat thickens but he hoarsely forces out the words. “A peanut butter sandwich.”

Her gun lowers on a slow arc. She flicks the safety on and slides it away. The tremor in her arm might not be detectable to anyone else, but he notices. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Clearly I’m supposed to.”

Natasha drops back onto the chair, the cheap wood creaking. Torn tape and handcuffs dangle from the hoop back, rattling when she settles. One shapely leg crosses over the other. “No,” she repeats. “You shouldn’t. According to that ugly red-faced ghoul, it was a one-way ticket. For me.”

He cringes at her emphasis, the arrogant and defiant set of her shoulders. Natasha plants her arm over her thigh and leans forward. 

“Red-faced ghoul?” 

“He was some kind of guardian, or at least seemed to be. Dressed in ragged black robes flowing around him in the wind, face with the skinned pulled too tight around his skull. I’d suggest a scarlet Voldemort but I don’t think you’d get the reference.”

The past and present collide. Clint said nothing about that, but they didn’t have the time. The attack on the base ended all conversations, and the breakneck pace from Thanos’ attack to burying Tony left so little opportunity for conversation. So little time. Now it’s all in the past, a decision he cannot turn his back on.

No time at all.

“I don’t. But he used to be a German scientist for Hydra. Red Skull.”

They lock gazes. Colour flees her complexion. She swears.

“Clint and I met him on that planet we were sent to. Vormir. He knew my father’s name, Rogers. I can’t even be sure of that. How did he know that?”

“I don’t know. But you can be sure I mean to find out.” He ventures a few steps closer and watches her ease into an upright position. It hurts to see the doubt and sharpness in her eyes. Going down to one knee, he reaches out for her hands.

Natasha clasps his slowly. She is surprisingly warm, the dark gloves abraded under his touch. Her bracers shift and he peels away the leather from her left fingers, trying to be certain she is real. Flesh and bone. 

The tears sting a burning path of slag down his cheeks, magma that seems to score away the flesh. Briny salt gathers on his lips. 

“Steve.” Her hoarse voice drops an octave, shallowing out on a broken note. “Steve, look. I need to know. Did it work?”

He pauses. Her knuckles rise and fall beneath his thumb stroking them, feeling the softened contours of bone flexing in such an incredible display of biology. The shuddering sob moves through him in a wave and ripples out. “Yeah, it worked.”

Relaxing onto the chair, she puts her other hand atop his. “Good. You fixed it all, then.”

“Just about.” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. “It was like you were there. I knew you were watching over us.”

Her smile hangs in the air, full of secrets, a mask donned by the prima ballerina at the peak of performance. Her hand pats his, and she squeezes his fingers. Reassuring him when he deserves nothing of the sort. 

“Then why are you stalling, Rogers?”

“Nat.”

“Since when have you held anything from me? That’s Mjolnir. Thor last saw it in pieces on a Norwegian field. You don’t get Mjolnir without being worthy, and hiding from me isn’t behaving like that.” 

Her prompt brings out a smile, even as he bows his head and bends over her knee, drawing in a great shuddering breath. The bellows of his lungs pour out the air and draw it back in, perfumed by leather and rain. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I should have been the one to make the call, not you.” 

“Steve. I chose. I knew what I was doing.”

“I made the wrong decision. You and Clint were sent to your deaths. This is my fault.” 

She folds forward, wrapping her arm around his shoulders in an awkward embrace made graceful in the moment. “I wouldn’t have changed a thing, if I had to do it twice.”

“Had I asked Nebula what Thanos gave up on Vormir, how it happened, I could have made the call. It should have been me.” The wave of grief that raged over him when Clint’s haggard face told him everything returns, a surge held no longer at bay. It floods out his breathing and he clings to her, a spar in a sea. “It should have been me.”

They hold tight to one another, tears mingling with the cool mist and the dark concrete. She doesn’t make a sound weeping, but the wet tracks form in his hair as they end up locked together. 

“You don’t get to choose that. Let me have the dignity of it. Besides, Clint already tried to replace me and it failed. You don’t get to replay that,” she says through a choked laugh.

“It might not be too late. A soul for a soul.”

Natasha pushes him back, the chair squeaking and falling away when her weight shifts. She drops to her knees and stares him dead on. “No. Rogers, no, you can’t.”

“I have all of them. All but Time, anyway. I could.”

Her mouth drops open. Slow undulating strands of her crimson hair break against her uplifted cheekbone in a wave, carving out the resistance of lilting motion. “I did this so you could  _ live _ .”

“And I’d do the same for you.” 

Natasha catches herself, shaking her head. Diamond drops cling to her black lashes. “Let me have this victory. I couldn’t be there for the rest, but this much I achieved. A victory to balance out failing to stop Thanos the first time, not getting there in time.”

Every word is a nail in his heart. He searches her teary face and finds the resolve that always lay in there, carved out in Slavic cheekbones and a faint smile. 

“Admit I’m right,” she blurts out.   
He tries to laugh, but it comes out as a choked sound. “You gave your all. You deserve a chance to see all you won, and you can’t argue with me about that.”

“Rogers. You know my record. Everyone saw it after I leaked SHIELD’s databases. That’s not something I ever expected to earn a pass on, even if we saved the world ten times over. And when we failed.” Her voice breaking, she stutters to reclaim her thoughts, pinning him with those bright eyes. “When we failed, I lost everything. We lost it all. I’ve made good, and the lives we saved, the lives  _ you  _ brought back, clears out the bad things I did.”

The confessions strip her to the soul and it rips her open, moving the skeletons out of the closet into plain sight. A show of bravery and compassion humbles him even as he has no way to forgive himself. “No one will ever say you owed them something. No one.” 

“Then I did what I set out to do,” she says.

“Nat, you have no idea how hard it was when we lost you. I have a job to do, but… The suit can transfer. If I left it on the bed, she would fit, and you can carry the gems. The case isn’t keyed to my fingerprints, so the codes are easy enough to pass on if I wrote them down.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I have the stones to send back to their proper times,” Steve says. “Take my place.”

“You can’t give up your future. You place. You’ve got Bucky back. Sam.” Each name is a prayer and a curse. “Fury even. What are they going to do without you?”

The wounds bleed in his heart as he forces a smile to his face, grief and joy together. “I get the feeling they’ll do just fine. You’re barely thirty and you spent your life serving others. If not the Red Room, then the Avengers. This time, you deserve freedom. The freedom to  _ choose _ your path without your past coming back to haunt you.”

Her incredulous tone floats above the hushed waters. She hugs herself rather than pacing, staring down at him where he kneels. “And what about you?”

“I had a life. After I came out of the ice, I got to be Captain America and lead the finest team of friends and allies a man could ask for. We served our country, our world. It’s a good retirement plan, you have to admit that. Going out with a bang.”

“This isn’t much of a retirement plan. You really want to live in a Red Room training facility?”

“I’d go back under the ice for a hundred years to give you twenty.”

She starts to cry again. The tears slip unbidden down her cheeks and she sniffs, ducking her head. Steve tries to give her dignity, closing his eyes. “Please.”

“I know you would. You’re such a damn Boy Scout.”

“Please,” he repeats it softly. A prayer, a benediction. His grasp on her slips. “I’m here for you, Natasha. I don’t know why or how, but I get a chance to make things right. You can go free and live the life you were supposed to have. Just imagine and it might happen.”

“Just suit up and walk out?” she asks.

“Could do that. You might get a farm in the country, neighbours with Clint, if you like.” He tries to smile for her.    
  
They both laugh in spite of themselves.

“You can’t see me living there, and you know it.” She rubs her elbow. “I don’t even know what I would do. Everything went to day to day survival. Never looking past tomorrow.”

“Not like you’ll be losing time trying to figure it out. Your serum probably works as well as mine does. It’s a long life ahead of you.”

She nods. Steve clings to the gutturing hope, breathing life into it. “That will be enough, knowing you’re out there and thriving.”

“No, Steve.”    
  
He jerks his head up, unfolding as he stands. “Natasha. Please.”

“A soul for a soul,” she whispers. “I paid and I made good. I won’t take your future away from you. You have to live.”

“I did live!” It’s a shout, too loud to his own ears. “I have lived. Twice. Twice and you can’t tell me I deserve it more than my best friend. More than you. You fought for every person, every avenue. You spent longer hours in the headquarters than I did, and your story isn’t finished yet. I hung up my shield to take a different path.”

She looks at him from across the room, holding the distance. Every stiff muscle in her body is poised to leap away. “What path, Steve?”

His heart breaks. He can’t lie to her and never would. “Replacing the stones where they belong.”

“And when that’s all done?” 

“Going back.” A swallow burns around the scalding lump in his throat. Everything he has is on the table in plain sight, and Natasha reads emotions better than most. Hiding would be hopeless, deceit her art and not his. “Staying after the war.”   
“Peggy,” she whispers.

He nods. His eyes ache from the pressure of the headache, the tears.    


“I can’t rob you of a little happiness.” The tone she holds slips into finality. 

“How is it robbery when I offer it?”   
  
She makes a cutting gesture with her hand. “You dreamt about that since you met her, admit it. The day she died, a light went out in you. Now you have your means to get there and…” A broken warble enters her voice. “And you’re talking about throwing it all away for me, like it means nothing.”

“It means sacrificing what you love most,” he whispers. He remembers that much from the sketched summary made around a table, the exhausted Avengers fielding what little of a report they could muster before he set out. “This is it, Nat. Fair and square.” 

“No!” she shouts. “No.” As if it’s her talisman. “No. I won’t let you.”

“But I choose it,” he says. 

“Please no. Steve, you mustn’t. You have a second chance. Not many of us get that. I can’t accept it, I won’t.” 

The hollow place in his chest where his heart used to beat fills with a leaden heaviness. The world shrinks around him, tighter and diminished. Natasha runs to him and wraps her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a desperate hug. His slack embrace takes her in, afraid to break her. 

“I’ll save the task until the last. In case…” 

In case she changes her mind. In case it’s the only option left. In case he can bring himself to it. Tears wet his cheek. “You fool,” she whispers. “You were always meant to live. Stop being the hero and be with her.” 

“I can’t leave you here.” 

“That’s probably what she said, too.” Her smile is lopsided against his cheek as she presses her cheek to his. “Now go.”

He tries to cry out, but the dream shatters into shards of gaseous topaz mist that eddies around his feet and he jerks awake in his bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for enduring me putting poor Steve through an act of suffering. Don't worry, not everything hurts nearly so much as this. Now I'm going to go have a good cry for Natasha's immediate fate, beautiful and agonizing as it is. I read all comments left by readers, so if you have a particular idea or just feedback to improve, let me know.


	3. A Game of Second Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve grieves for his failure as he fulfills his first promise and receives an unexpected offer.

_I don't think I deserve this, for all my sins,_  
_You could wait for a lifetime but I walked right in._  
 _Since I made a decision to let things go,_  
 _The voice in my head only says what I need to know._

_\--_ Friendly Fires, _Heaven Let Me In (Meduza Remix)_

**_2012._ **

The Ancient One stands there in all her calm in the doorway, holding a tea set. Her wise, untroubled eyes invoke agony and rage in him that he tries to hide, likely too late. A sheet slides over his waist as he sits up.

“What happened?”

“You slept,” she says. “Fourteen hours to be precise. Tea?”

“Natasha,” he blurts out.

She shakes her head and gestures to the case. “In the Soul Stone, safely beside you. I can feel her presence, Captain Rogers. You do not need to be alarmed. Nothing will harm her here. Indeed, nothing may harm her at all. She is at peace, of a kind, forged by the very forces of the universe.”   
The sorceress effortlessly pours a cup and conveys it to him, her sleeves trailing in a banner. He takes it by rote with a word of thanks. “How do you know this?”

“I am the Sorcerer Supreme of this world. It is my business to know the disposition of such powerful relics.” Her smile holds serenity that leaches away his grief by small degrees. “You bear a difficult burden.”

He looks at the steel briefcase. It holds the sum of a promise. “We brought the Time Stone back.”

“May I?” the Ancient One says.

He doesn’t know what she means, but he can guess. The possession of the Time Stone isn’t his any longer. With a rough nod, he sips his tea.

A flick of her fingers causes a phosphorescent green light to flower above her fingertips. The chunk of primal power manifests above her palm, hovering there, both of them basking in its unquenched radiance. Her smile grows.

“You honoured your bargain. For that, you hold my gratitude.”

WIth a sweep of her hand, a necklace forms around her throat on braided lines. Steve tries hard not to stare. Magic is outside his bailiwick and the shock of Natasha still rides him like a demon. He clutches to the memories of dissipating dreams, aching at the sound of her voice.

The amulet on the Ancient One’s necklace snaps open, a vacant hollow revealed among oiled bronze filaments. Floating, the stone fits into the socket and forges a distinct seal. The viridian orb burns with an inner light, an inner presence so distinct, it almost looks upon him. Then the segmented lids snap shut, quenching its unsettling illumination.

He swallows the tea. “We would not have succeeded without your trust and faith in Bruce. If anything, I owe you our thanks.”

She offers her calm smile and settles her hands against her midsection in a formal pose. “The debt between us is cleared. Though I believe I may offer you something as a token.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “You do not owe me anything.”

“A gift, then. You have a long journey ahead.”

He lowers his head, staring into the tea as though it holds his future. If she can read his heart, this pallid sorceress knows there is no gift he wants. She cannot change a ghost’s mind. Surely not.

“No, I cannot.”

He startles, spilling tea over the sheet and his pant leg. “You can hear…”

“I can guess the human heart, Captain Rogers. It does not surprise me you would sacrifice for the greater good.” She touches the amulet at her throat, the Eye of Agamotto and its treasure like any other antique. “There is another painful burden upon your shoulders that you carry. Perhaps it may be released before you begin your journey.”

“How?” He is too tired, too ragged, to guess at enigmatic statements. “I can’t go back.”

“But you can make your farewells here.”

“He doesn’t know me here. Not now. We won’t meet for another two years.”

“And if I could provide you a sanctuary?” With a gesture, the Ancient One forms a burning comet trail through the room between them. A looped eddy twirls around and rejoins the flow. “A short-lived one, I warn you. The flow of time must resume its full course. The world, this world, cannot risk splintering. Yet a night, with two people, might not alter the current.”

“How can you be sure it won't backfire? Bruce said it was dangerous. I don’t know enough about the mechanics,” he says.

“That shall not be an issue as long as you both stay to a single location. I can control the flow from there.”   
  
“Where?” It’s too good to be true. Bucky. Him. A night.

Her hands clasp together. “The where matters less than who. If there is someone alive you wish to see, I can provide you a chance to make your farewells and gain closure.”

"I do." Steve can barely fumble for his name, let alone a location. “Bucky. James Barnes. I don’t know how you would bring him there.”

“Is this what you wish? Of all things I can offer you, this is what you want?”

“I tried to save Natasha. I still mean to. But,” he glances guiltily at the steel case, “I can’t ask you to do that. Giving Bucky some hope here matters. I won’t be there when it counts. I've got to be certain.”

She picks up the tray, leaving the pot of tea. “Do not be certain. The future is fluid. The impact you make now may have all the difference in years to come. Ready yourself, then, and see me when you are ready. You will find me at the end of the hall.”

With that, she leaves the room and leaves him to stare at his hands, contemplating her words. A chance to say farewell, properly and not in hidden messages he prayed Bucky would understand. Maybe he could find a way to convince Natasha. Buck understood her better in ways than even Steve himself.

He rubs his face and stares at the hammer on the floor. Almost unsure, he reaches for it, slowly tugging. It rises with ease, a compass of a sort. _Peggy. Bucky. Nat. I can’t choose between you_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for following along. I thrive on comments, like any plant loves the sun. While Steve needs to hand over the Mind Stone in its Chitauri sceptre, there's a quick diversion and some loving attention to see to before he takes on that difficult task. Next up, one James Buchanan Barnes.


End file.
